Merry Christmas
by secret.hs
Summary: Dirk Strider is alone on Christmas.


Merry Christmas

Dirk sat on the edge of his roof. His legs dangled into the yawning, abyssal sky between him and the ocean. As he stared into the distance, the setting sun dipped into the sea, its glittering rays fragmented and scattered across the surface of the water. It drifted below layer of orange-purple clouds and shone directly into Dirk's eyes. His shades muted the glow but it was still harsh enough to force him to squint.

He lay back onto the concrete slabs of the roof and gazed into the sky. His shades slipped infinitesimally from his face as he tilted his head back, providing a crack of deep royal blue sky amidst the dull gray cast with which his glasses obscured the world. A pale white seagull flew high above. Its determined wing strokes carried it quickly to the edge of Dirk's vision, where it eventually disappeared. He was alone on the roof.

A bottle of carbonated orange soda sat at his side, half-empty and slowly falling flat. Next to it was perched a ridiculously delicate martini glass which contained a small amount of the bubbly orange liquid. Dirk sighed and lifted the glass to the sky, letting the stars and the red and green lights behind him twinkle off of cup's reflective rim. "Merry Christmas to me," he said.

The tang of the orange soda had barely passed his lips when a grinding of gears and a robotic voice took him by surprise. "YO DOGG! YOU UP FOR SOME MAD CRAZY RAPPIN?" Dirk spit out the drink with an appropriately ridiculous noise. He wiped his face free of the orangey residue and regained his composure before answering his robot.

"Not now, Squarewave," he said as he set the glass carefully down onto the roof and got to his feet. The robot rumbled unhappily, but Dirk pushed past him and headed back to the interior of his house. The sun set fully as he climbed down to the door and the only remaining light came from the cheap plastic Christmas lights strung haphazardly around the tower on the roof.

Dirk's room was as lonely as he had left it. The Christmas tree that he had built out of empty soda bottles and strung with yet more flimsy lights glimmered pitifully in the corner. Next to it laid several immaculately wrapped gifts in blue, orange, and green wrapping paper just waiting to be sendificated. The LCD screen of his laptop illuminated the room with an eerily antiseptic white light. Dirk's bright red Crockercorp brand sendificator was perched at the very top of the soda bottle tree like a bloody red star. He walked over and lifted it off of the tree, careful not to dislodge the intricately stacked bottle.

With the red box placed securely under his arm, he returned to his lonely computer desk. Dirk's Rainbow Dash poster grinned at him as he sat down. The screen was blank and pure white with the one exception of the password entry box, which he immediately filled with his code. The monitor flashed to life and its sterile aura was replaced with the warm glow of his desktop background. Squarewave and Sawtooth posed behind his array of icons. The corners of Dirk's lips twitched involuntarily upwards as he saw the picture. It never failed to make him smile, but somehow, the companionship of his robots felt bittersweet.

He gazed out of the window into the inky blue waters that blended so perfectly into the sky. It looked as though there was no separation at the horizon, as though the watery world continued unending for the entire 360 degrees. Dirk picked up another half-empty soda bottle from the many he had lying around and took a long swig. The sugary liquid chilled Dirk's throat and filled his veins with an icy longing for something. What that something was, exactly, he didn't know.

He didn't know until the Pesterchum window on his screen flashed into existence. The tabs at the bottom of his screen blinked a rapid orange as his chums messaged him all at once. The cold fled Dirk's heart, to be replaced by the warmth of friendship (cliché as it may have seemed) as he adjusted his shades and checked his messages.

GT: Merry christmas, strider!

TG: heyy di stri happy 12th perigiree or whatever you call it these days

TG: did you know they make alcoholhic eggnog

GG: Merry Christmas, Dirk! :B

TT: Merry Christmas.


End file.
